Special Symposium
Ernst Bloch: The Jew as European and American Composer On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of his Death
The Jewish Bloch
Chair: Malcom MillerZecharia Plavin, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Bloch's Jewish-Hebrew musical narrative of Jewish Cycle and the late phase of European Enlightenment
The Jewish Cycle of Ernest Bloch is a product of European cultural mind. Its creation in 1912-1917, together with stylistically related several compositions of Bloch's first years in the USA (e.g. the Viola Suite, both Sonatas for Violin and Piano, the First Piano Quintet) constitute the entrance of Jewish- Hebrew topics to the European concert agenda. The European concert agenda of the last pre-First World War years constituted an international elite metropolitan discourse where various nationallybent, but aesthetically acceptable for most European concert-goers styles generated 'nation-portraits' in view of the music-cum-culture-oriented commentators. Such a cultural discourse constituted a manifestation of late-enlightenment historical phase. Although Bloch's Jewish Cycle was introduced in Europe much later, after initial American successes, and in completely changed political situation, his works still managed to create within parts of European public a vision of 'Jewish-Hebrew nation', with its distinct late-enlightenment traits. This vision might be a source of contemporary Israeli search for rejuvenated self-identity.
Bloch's achievement lies in his fusion of various oriental, archaic and coloristic devices, specifically related to his perceptions of Jews, with strict command of form, mastery of orchestration and of polyphony. By adhering adroitly to these latter qualities, Bloch positioned himself as a pro-German, pro-mainstream composer. By such self-positioning, he helped to legitimize poetically his Jewish- Hebrew-national quest in music. Bloch's achievements peculiarly refute the dictum of Bertrand Russell, made in 1945, that the Jews in Europe ceased to contribute to the Western civilization as members of a distinct group ('race'), contributing only as separate personalities. Through his personal work Bloch re-introduced the Jewish-Hebrew national agenda into the Western cultural discourse.
Klara Móricz, Valentine Professor of Music, Amherst College, Music Department
Testing the Limits of the Human Universal: Ernest Bloch’s America
Ernest Bloch arrived in the United States in 1916 and quickly managed to establish himself as the paradigmatic Jewish composer. For a few years he was celebrated as the only composer who expressed his Jewish heritance in music without inhibition. Yet by the end of the 1910s Bloch seems to have been given up his grandiose plans concerning Jewish music and focused on writing music with decidedly non-Jewish character. In my paper I investigate the reasons that brought about this change in Bloch’s prospective career, focusing on the American reception of his work and Bloch’s attempt to “transcend” the racial category that he initially embraced so enthusiastically. Critics’ insistence on hearing Jewish overtones in all of Bloch’s music can be demonstrated in the critical reception of his America, a work in which he intended to create a specifically American voice for himself. Listening closely to Bloch’s American rhapsody reveals that not only his critics, but also Bloch himself was trapped in the inescapable racial framework in which art was created and understood in the first half of the twentieth century.
Jehoash Hirshberg, Prof. (Emeritus), Department of Musicology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Ernest Bloch, Heinrich Schalit, Paul Frankenburger Ben-Haim And the Emergence of a Jewish Choral Style in Art Music
Bloch’s seminal ‘Sacred Service’ (Avodat Hakodesh, 1933) antedated Heinrich Schalit’s ‘Sacred Service’ which inspired Paul Frankenburger a capella choral Psalms of 1927-29 (which were never performed after their premieres in Germany). Yet there is little doubt that it was the momentous double premiere of Bloch’s work in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv in 1940, for which Ben Haim wrote the program notes that inspired Ben Haim when he set to compose Ma Tovu (1947), Psalm 93 (1949), and later the remaining three movements which finally comprised the Liturgical Cantata (1956). The paper will discuss the common elements of those landmarks in the establishment of Jewish choral style, first in the German liberal context and then in the American Reform synagogue, as well as the relatively few elements of Israeli music in the Liturgical Cantata.
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